Sample Along: Supported Long Draw

We've reached the longdraw portion of our Sample Along! The style of longdraw that I use the most is supported longdraw, where my front hand helps control how the twist zips into the fiber.

I don't use a sweeping, long, longdraw much because it makes my shoulder crabby. If you have any shoulder issues I do not reccomend doing a sweeping style of longdraw for any length of time.

My two biggest tips for long draw are:

1) Make sure your fiber is open and fluffy, just begging to be drafted. Your drafting tension point is your wheel, not your front hand, you can't tug a tight fiber mass or your wheel will walk or fall over (ask me how I know), or your yarn will break. Woolen preparations work wonderfully with long draw, carded roving, rolags, batts, or spinning from the fold.

2) Go slowly

Are you tired of hearing me say this one? It's true! It's a kindness to let yourself learn something slowly. There is a lot going on with longdraw, wheels set up, body set up, finding that perfect point of twist and draft, this style of drafting isn't a sprint. At least, until you are comfortable with controlling it, then it is a fast draft.

Wheel set up

I set myself up with a little more twist. I go down a whorl size, or treadle faster. I want a stronger take up on my wheel. It allows me to get the yarn onto the bobbin faster, keeping it fluffy, and it gives me a little more of an anchor point to tension against when I draft.

Hands and feet - finding the sweet spot

Give yourself the gift of doing a little playing here, a little experimenting. Your front hand controls the twist, closing to gather a bit of twist, then opening to let the twist shoot into the fiber while you draw back. It takes a bit of trail and error, especially if you are like me, and tend to speed up treadling when you get nervous trying new things.

Don't aim for a cosistent yarn, work on one thing, getting that balance between draft and twist. Consistencey can come later.

The basics

Start with a short backward woolen draft. Get that rhythm going and comfortable.

Then start lengthening your draft, and opening and closing your front fingers at a different rate. It's more like a pulse or a flutter. At the same time be conscious of twist, you may need to increase your twist a bit, and you may need to increase your take up.

Yes, this drafting style, at the beginning, is just like a knitting pattern that has four things to keep track of at the same time.

It's also like learning to drive a stick shift, you don't want to rev and you don't want to stall.

But when you hit that spot where it all comes together it is magic. When you can sustain this draft you can make yarn very quickly.

The yarn you make will be light and fluffy. At first, it won't be conssitent, and that is just fine, you can work on that later. Look at my quick sample yarns in the photos, super uneven, and that is a-ok.

I made a short video for you. It's a little different than some longdraw videos.

At the beginning I focus on my front hand, that's what I always wanted to see when I was learning. What is going on with the front hand, what ‘s the rhythm? I do show my sweep at the end.

For next time, which will be the wrap up for this Sample Along, I’m going to choose four of my drafts and spin enough to knit a stockinette swatch. i learn as much knitting my yarns as I do spinning them.

Our next Sample Along will be about color again. If you have any ideas of what you’d like it to be let me know in the comments.

Happy spinning!

Sample Along: Spinning from the Fold, Worsted Draft

Spinning from the fold is more a method of changing the preparation than a way of drafting, but it is a clever, clever skill to have in your toolkit.

I spin from the fold when I want to make a worsted preparation airier, and mostly, when I feel like I need a little more control over slippery fibers or blends.

For me it’s silk blends, or those irresistible fine wool/ silk/ bamboo blends.

To spin form the fold, pull a couple staple lengths (ish) from your fiber, and fold it over your index finger.

Less is more when spinning from the fold, make sure that your fiber is not too wide.

Hold the ends of the fiber lightly in your palm, try not to grip.

Tease the fiber out and over the tip of your index finger.

Point your finger at your orifice and start spinning. Pulling fiber from the tip of your finger to draft.

I find a forward drafting direction when I spin with a worsted draft from the fold works best for me.

If you are spinning combed top from the fold, it makes it into a less woolen preparation.

A worsted, combed preparation is carefully aligned with all the fibers coming from one direction when you draft. It encourages smooth, dense yarn with little air in it.

Folding the fibers, changes that.

The fibers are now coming from different directions, with air between them.

Even if you draft worsted, the result will still be an airier, less dense yarn.

Spinning from the fold is great for controlling fiber blends that are slippery, have many different staple lengths, or any fiber or blend you feel is ‘getting away’ from you.

Just using a smaller amount of fiber makes me feel in better control of slipperies. Add to that the bend in the fiber, which slows down the draft, plus holding on to the ends of the fiber, and I feel like I am the boss of all those lovely fibers.

A couple of things about spinning from the fold that you don’t have to do:

Keep your hand vertical in relation to the orifice. I tend tip my hand horizontally, it feels better on my wrist.

Keep your finger in the fold. You can just fold the fiber in half, no finger needed.

If your folded fibers get less than tidy, you can stop and reposition your fiber, refold the fibers that are left. I almost always have a bit of fiber, sometimes a clump left over in my hand. If I am spinning with a worsted draft, I put that fiber in my blending bag to use for something else. It tends stay clumpy when spun worsted.

Here’s a quicky video of me spinning from the fold.

New to Me Dyer and Wheel

Laura Linneman turned me on to to a fantastic dyer, Koomasee. Laura is dangerous to my bank account.

Look at these braids!

She has a way of applying the color in a light sort smokey way, they magically have intensity without saturation. Her colors really appeal to me.

Most of you know that superwash Merino is not my favorite fiber to spin ,but I bought a superwash Merino to spin and I know I’m going to love it. It’s the upper right photo, stunning.

I will keep you updated on the spinning.

The braids on the left are BFL (top), and Corriedale (bottom). She has a nice variety of fibers, and I noticed she’s done an update since I bought my braids.

What do you think my newest wheel is?

I bet not many of you guessed that I bought more of a beginner/intermediate wheel. I bought a used Schacht Ladybug.

I'm going to be teaching brand new, only-dreamed-of-making-yarn folks how to spin, and I think the Lady Bug is a great wheel to do that on. I've never owned one, and it is a sweet wheel.

Just like every wheel I get I'm going to spin through a few braids to get to know her.

My Koomasee braids are perfect for that, and when I finish them I'll be going back for more.

Cleaning Handcards, Blending Boards, and Drum Carders, AKA My Patrons are the Best

Every month I gather with a group of my Patrons on Zoom, and we chat and spin. Of course, we spend time exchanging info about our best fibers and tools to buy. Spinners never gather without talking about shopping.

As well as being amazing and clever spinners my Patrons are outstanding and smart shoppers. A special shout-out to Laura Linneman (one half of The Knitgirlls) who is a human database of knitting patterns that work well with handspun.

I will admit to buying something after every one of our gatherings. My favorite tool of late is this fantastic hairbrush cleaner to use for cleaning my woolen prep tools. Really anything sold as a hairbrush cleaner will work.

I like this one in particular becasue the handle is long; it keeps my knuckles away from the teeth on my carders and blending board. I also like that it has two different sized spreads and densities of cleaning teeth.

Let's talk about those teeth. I usually don't like to use metal near carding cloth. For example I don't reccomend using a paper clip to clean cards, it's easy to nick the carding cloth.

The wire that the cleaning rakes are made of is very fine and flexible. They don't have the density or umph to nick the rubber carding cloth, but are strong enough in a group to catch all of the stray fibers on your handcarders, blending board or drum carder.

It is so satisfying getting all of my carders, really clean.

Curious about my Patron Zoom Parties? All of the info is on my Patreon page.

Plying Sample Along: Let's Look at Swatches!

L to R: Singles, 2-ply, and 3ply

I knit all three of my yarns into three swatches, stockinette, lace, and a cable. I used the same needle size for each yarn, but not the same needle size accross the three yarns. I did not spin to match finished yarn sizes. Someone always asks.

Looking at the swatches above where they are grouped by yarn, not stitch pattern, they look similar. Probably even similar enough to be interchangable. When I group my swatches by stitch pattern, something else happens I see variations that can make a difference to a project.

I’m sure you’ve heard and read that if you look at a yarn from the end with the aid of magnification, the different plies have different shapes and behave differently. Singles are round-ish, and soft. 2-ply yarns are oval shaped and the plies tend to open, roll apart, and flatten. 3-ply yarns are round, push together and up.

L to R: Singles, top - 2-ply, and bottom -3ply

My singles stockinette swatch (left), has pretty good stitch definition, I can easily count stitches, and they look soft not crisp. To me the 2-ply (top right) and 3-ply (bottom right) look very different. The surface of the 2-ply is very visually busy, and the individual stitches are harder to see, that’s those plies pushing apart. The 3-ply stitches have crisp edges and the stitches and rows line up in straight lines. I like texture and visual motion in my knitting and this explains to me why I’m always reaching for a 2-ply yarn for stockinette projects.

L to R: Singles, top - 2-ply, and bottom -3ply

My singles lace swatch (left), shows the lace pattern evenly, and holds a block well. I always like how light lace knit from singles is too. The 2-ply (top right) and 3-ply (bottom right) have different qualities. They are not bad or good, I just choose what I like for a particular project.

The rolling away quality that made the 2-ply stockinette swatch look busy, keeps lace patterns open, and helps the stitch pattern look balanced. The crispness along with rolling together, and pushing up of a 3-ply yarn makes lace look like it could be a alternate stitch pattern. It’s not, all three swatches are English Mesh.

When I look at lace knit from a 3-ply yarn, my eye goes right to the decreases, they really stack up and the holes are rolling closed.. The lace pattern is not as uniform as the 2-ply swatch. To my eye it looks like a more complex stitch pattern, like a combination of lace and cable that I’ve seen in Japanese stitch pattern books.

L to R: Singles, top - 2-ply, and bottom -3ply

Texture and cable patterns are all about lift and clear edges. My singles cable swatch (left) doesn’t have much lift and the edges are very soft, the cable is more of a surface pattern. The 2-ply (top right) gets a little higher, but notice the blurriness of stitches in the stockinette part of the cable, that makes it look kind of soft.

The 3-ply swatch (bottom right) is the cable champion here. The stitches have edges, the cable looks carved, and really stands up off of the background.

I hope you found some interesting things in your swatches, and I hope this Sample Along helped to shine a light on some knitting mysteries too.

We’ll be doing another Sample Along, as soon as my Patrons choose a new topic!

Plying Sample Along: Spinning Singles to Stay Singles

Did you get your 2-ply and 3-ply yarns made? Isn't it facinating how different they look just as yarn?

Now it's time to spin our singles that will stay singles. If you've never spun singles that will stay singles it can be tricky. Like many things in spinning the concept is easy, but it takes practice.

The key thing is to spin a yarn with less twist. When we spin a single to ply, we are adding extra twist. When we ply that yarn in the opposite direction that extra twist is removed.

The practice comes in spinning and recognizing what that 'less twist' is. Because I am more of a visual spinner I use a plyback sample, even though I won't be plying. I want my plyback smaple to look like a 2-ply that I wouldn't really want to use, like it wouldn't hold up well for a project.

If you are a measuring spinner, try spinning with about 30% less twist when you measure the twist angle.

Here are two plyback samples, the one on the left is the one I used for for my singles to stay singles, the one on the right is for my singles that were plied.

When I get a plyback sample with the twist I think will work, I give the single a tug between my hands to make sure it has enough twist to not drift apart.

The easiest way to spin with less twist is to change your wheel setting. Spin your singles to stay singles yarn on a bigger whorl than you would spin your singles to ply.

You can see the difference in my two blue yarns, moving from my Lendrum’s smallest whorl to the biggest.

If changing whorl size isn’t enough, or you don’t have a bigger whorl, you can treadle slower. Increasing your uptake just a little can help too, it gets your yarn onto the bobbin faster, before it can accumulate more twist.

When you take your singles that will stay singles off of your niddy noddy and it curls up all over the place - do not despair! A good finish is important for singles. The upper right photo is my singles fresh off of my niddy - sproing!

Here is my green yarn after a regular ‘soak, roll in a towel, snap, and hang’ finish. Amazing isn’t it? Even though there is a twist at the bottom it will not bias when I knit with it. Whacking is another good finish for singles.

The process of whacking wet yarn causes the yarn to draw in a little, stabilizing it. Whacking does disturb the surface of a yarn, so if you want a yarn with a smooth surface you may not want to whack.

Now we have our three yarns, our next step is to knit swatches and marvel at the differences.

Plying Sample Along: The Beginning

Plying for knitting is one of my favorite things to think about and to plan for projects.

My plying samples knit into different stitch patterns are the samples that students in my classes are most facinated by. I see so many lighbulbs go off in thir spinning thnking as they compare the samples.

I made my original samples in 2013 for my spinning column in Knitty and the process of making different plied yarns all at once, and then knitting them in the same stitch patterns forever changed how I thought about the effect of ply in knitting.

I want to remake my samples (they are looking a little tired) and I thought plying for knitting would be a great topic for our next Sample Along.

Are you ready to ply and knit?

We are going to make three yarns, and knit three swatches out of each yarn. We’ll make a 2-ply, a 3-ply, and a singles that will stay a singles. Each yarn will be knit into stockinette, cable and lace swatches.

You’ll need some natural or light colored dyed fiber. I will probably use 3-4 ounces, because I like to have yarn left over after I knit my swatches, and the yarn I spin is not particualry fine. Your fiber mileage will vary. My pile of current swatches weighs in at 2.25 ounces. They are spun from BFL top with a woolen draft, and range from DK to heavy worsted.

Use a fiber you love to spin, and spin your default yarn. The focus of this Sample Along is learning about what your plies do to your knitting. Making and using a yarn for sampling that you make and use frequently will be most helpful to your future spinning and knitting. These samples can show you how your future yarns behave and look, where you might want to make changes, and will be great for planning projects.

Please use a light colored, natural, solid or semi solid fiber, you want to be able to see your plies and knitted stitches without a spotlight and a magnifying glass.

You need your regular spinning tools - a wheel or a spindle, extra bobbins, or storage bobbins, and a Lazy Kate. Make sure to grab your favorite office supplies to label skeins and swatches.

Gather your supplies and next week I will talk about two different ways to organize your spin.